


Fragile Bones

by GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Nice Peter, Nostalgia, Past Character Death, Peter Hale doesn't handle things well, Sick Stiles, Unreliable Narrator, this is sad and melodramatic and i'm not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys/pseuds/GayerThanATreeFullOfMonkeys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course Peter was living in the past, how could he not?<br/>But summer can't last forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragile Bones

If Peter can do anything it is reminisce.

He has been nostalgic for one thing or another since he started the 7th grade and left all his so called innocence behind but if there is one thing that he dwells on above anything else it's Stiles (of course it is, how could it ever be anyone else?)

The others don't talk about him very often. Well, Scott does sometimes, while playing with Melissa, his newborn daughter, he'll look up at Allison and smile, whisper something along the lines of "She's just like him, never stops babbling."

Allison will smile in return, eyes a little glassy and turn away.

Scenes like this calm the beast that is constantly pacing inside of Peter (for a few moments at least).

 

Derek doesn't like to talk about it, he supposedly doesn't have time to sit and chat anymore, he's always moving, always saying something oh so important but Peter just doesn't think his heart is in it anymore. (Interacting with Derek makes the beast growl and tense up and Peter has to hurry away, Stiles wouldn't want him to go bad again)

 

 

Erica and Boyd are quiet. They stay wrapped up in each other and Peter leaves them alone, not wanting to disturb the almost peace they have created together.

 

 

Cora simply follows Derek, sometimes she'll look over at him with eyes fresh with sympathy but Peter scoffs and avoids her. She didn't know Stiles, not like he had. She didn't understand and never could.

If he had simply talked to her though she would have told him that "I do know _you_ though Uncle Peter." but he never would. (If there is one thing Peter Hale can do it is hide away from the truth)

 

Lydia thrives. But then she has always been stronger than the rest of them, able to handle pain in a way that is uniquely her.

Peter can hardly stand being around it.

The way she pulls her hair back so harshly now, as if a single strand out of place will make her wall of confidence crumble. Sometimes she tries to talk to him, tell him that "Stiles wouldn't want..." he never does find out what Stiles wouldn't want, he always cuts her off with some scathing remark.

Eventually she stops trying.

 

 

Issac pulls into himself and away from Scott and Allison who are confused but leave him be.

Peter likes him, this pretty boy with a sharp tongue and a gaze that pretends to be innocent. He sits close to him on the couch and engages him in conversations about anything, it doesn't matter what because if he just looks at Issac's wildly gesturing hands then he almost gets back...

No.

He's never going to get him back.

 

 

But he is going to be as nostalgic as he likes and he doesn't care if it makes Derek pull away even more.

He doesn't care if Scott and Allison have the salty scent of tears clinging permanently to their home.

He doesn't care that Lydia and Cora are slowly giving up on him.

He doesn't.... He just wants to remember and he doesn't know why they are all so opposed to the way he lives in the past.

 

 

After all, how could Peter not? How could anyone bear living in reality when they had a past like his? A summer of Stiles.

A summer of the boy laughing at him as he makes iced tea, barefoot in Peter's kitchen. A summer of open windows and Stiles sitting on the sill, muttering the ingredients to some spell under his breath and Peter telling him to "get your human ass away from there, I'm not saving you if you fall." and Stiles smirking "Have fun nursing this human ass back to health than."

He would always sit on the window sill.

And Peter knew that Stiles could take care of himself, of course he could, the kid could take over the world if he put his mind to it. But he was human and his body was made up of fragile bones that took so long to heal and Peter never stopped looking over his shoulder, making sure that his little pet human was still alive.

 

Of course he lived in the past, in the very specific past, in those three months of kissing the rude remarks out of the boy's mouth and waking up with the bed still warm from his tossing and turning.

He dared not dwell on anything other than those three months.

 

 

Because after summer fall would always come and as the leaves fell off of trees Stiles's bruises stopped fading into his pale skin. The little weight that he had dropped off of him, he was always either sweating or shivering and he complained of a pain deep down in his bones.

 

 

And Peter knew before Stiles even went to the doctor.

 

He smelled it.

 

 

The cancer crawling through his body and destroying everything it touched.

Peter had smelled it on Stiles's mother's old things and in the hospital, always in the hospital.

The others smelled it as well. Scott had turned very pale and swayed on his feet. Derek looked like someone had punched him. The others just got very quiet.

 

 

He first had smelled it on September 23, he forced Stiles to go to the doctor on September 25.

By November 15 they all knew that it was over.

 

By December 1 he overheard the doctors telling the Sheriff to prepare himself.

He wonders if the sheriff ever did figure out how to prepare himself because by 1 in the morning Stiles was telling his dad that it was all going to be ok.

How could he not live in the summer when fall was this bad?

How could he move on after a fall like that?

It was the middle of winter and he had never felt so cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god I woke up at 5 this morning with this idea running through my head and now I'm regretting writing it but I hope you all enjoy :)
> 
> EDIT: I now have a fandom blog!! Come talk to me at crossroadsbela.tumblr.com!! I'd love to hear from you guys!


End file.
